The dwindling reserves of fuelwood in Africa have been illuminated in a new study published today, which shows a bleak outlook for supplies across savannas in South Africa. Presenting their findings in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, researchers have found that at current consumption levels in the communal areas of Lowveld, South Africa, reserves of fuelwood could be totally exhausted within 13 years. The consequences are significant, with around half of the 2.4 million rural households in the country using wood as their primary fuel source, ...

(Embargoed) CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Histone proteins are the proteins that package DNA into chromosomes. Every time the cell replicates its DNA it must make large amounts of newly made histones to organize DNA within the nucleus. An imbalance in the production of DNA and histones is usually lethal for the cell, which is why the levels of the messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding the histone proteins must be tightly controlled to ensure the proper amounts of histones (not too many and not too few) are made. In a collaborative effort published online in the January 18, 2013 issue ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Jan. 17, 2013 – Farmworkers are at potential risk from food and waterborne illnesses because of the condition of cooking and eating facilities available to them, according to a new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Researchers from Wake Forest Baptist are the first to evaluate cooking and eating facilities in migrant farmworker camps to compare against established housing regulations. They found that the facilities fail to comply with regulations in a substantial number of camps. The study, which appears online today in the January issue ...

In contrast to climate change, there is no coordinated global system in place for measuring and reporting on biodiversity change or loss. An international team of biologists is now addressing this gap. In Science today, 30 researchers led by Henrique Miguel Pereira, from the Centre for Environmental Biology of the University of Lisbon, proposed a global biodiversity monitoring system based on a set of essential variables. By determining the most essential measurements to accurately and usefully report on biodiversity loss, known as essential biodiversity variables (EBVs), ...

Scientists from The University of Manchester have discovered that weight loss plays an important role in the body's response to fighting off intestinal worms. The findings have been published in the journal PLOS Pathogens and show that the immune system hijacks the natural feeding pathways causing weight loss. This then drives the defense mechanisms down the correct pathway to expel the worms. Nearly one quarter of the world's population is infected with gastrointestinal parasites. These prevalent infections often result in a period of reduced appetite resulting in ...

This press release is available in German. Immune cells constantly patrol our body to check for foreign invaders, such as bacteria or viruses. To do so they leave the blood stream, actively crawl through tissues and finally re-enter the circulation via lymphatic vessels. Research from the laboratory of Michael Sixt elucidates how the cells are guided through tissues like the skin. It is thought that cells either sense their environment by 'touching' or 'smelling': They adhere to structural molecules like connective tissue proteins using adhesion receptors. Or ...

Gas separation is crucial for many industrial processes including obtaining nitrogen or oxygen from air and purifying natural gas or hydrogen. Currently, the most energy efficient method for separating gases involves polymer membranes, however, most polymers either let gases pass through slowly (i.e. have low permeability) or are not selective towards one gas over another. Gas separation would be cheaper and use less energy if polymer membranes could be made both highly permeable and selective. A team from the University's School of Chemistry reports in the journal Science ...

This press release is available in German. Toronto -- Early life exposure to normal bacteria of the GI tract (gut microbes) protects against autoimmune disease in mice, according to research published on-line in the January 17 edition of Science. The study may also have uncovered reasons why females are at greater risk of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus compared to males. Researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) found that when female mice at high risk of autoimmune (type 1) diabetes were exposed ...

(Edmonton) Almost 100 years after the initial discovery, a team of scientists at the University of Alberta and the National Institute for Nanotechnology in Edmonton have harnessed the Barkhausen Effect as a new kind of high-resolution microscopy for the insides of magnetic materials. The researchers say the technique has the potential to provide critical information as a rapid prototyper for magnetic computational devices that expand the role of magnetism within computers. In 1919, Barkhausen discovered the first evidence of magnetic domains (patterns in how the directions ...

Spending on energy efficiency programs funded by electric and natural gas utility customers will double by 2025 to about $9.5 billion per year, according to projections published today by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). These funds, which come from a charge on utility bills, historically constitute the nation's largest source of spending on programs to foster the adoption of more efficient products and buildings. According to the Berkeley Lab report, energy efficiency programs funded by utility customers are projected to continue ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Duke University engineers have developed a novel sensor that is more efficient, versatile and cheaper for potential use in such applications as airport security scanners and collision avoidance systems for aircraft, cars or maritime vessels. The researchers fabricated a unique material, known as a metamaterial, that acts as a lens to image scenes using fewer components than conventional detectors. Because of the properties of this man-made material, much of the additional equipment needed for conventional detector systems – like lenses, mechanical positioners ...

Many people who suffer from chronic kidney disease progressively lose their kidney function over time and eventually develop a condition called end-stage renal disease – the complete failure of the kidneys – placing them in need of lifelong dialysis or a kidney transplant. Now researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research have found that the risk of kidney failure is greater for people with chronic kidney disease who also have atrial fibrillation, one of the most common forms of irregular ...

Often, employees are shocked by what they think is a supervisor's severe reaction to a subordinate's seemingly minor transgression. The supervisors who punish them seem to be so absolutely sure that they are doing the right thing—they have a clear sense of purpose and there are no arguments to sway them. New research by Scott Wiltermuth, a USC Marshall School of Business assistant professor of management and organization, and co-author Francis Flynn of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, found that providing a sense of power to someone instills a black-and-white ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- One of the most common types of brain tumors in adults, glioblastoma multiforme, is one of the most devastating. Even with recent advances in surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, the aggressive and invasive tumors become resistant to treatment, and median survival of patients is only about 15 months. In a study published in Neuro-Oncology, researchers at Mayo Clinic identify an important association between the naturally occurring enzyme Kallikrein 6, also known as KLK6, and the malignant tumors. "Our study of Kallikrein 6 showed that higher levels ...

Los Angeles, CA (January 17, 2013) - Plantar fasciitis is the most frequent cause of chronic heel pain, leaving many sufferers unable to put their best foot forward for months at a time. Now a Mexican study suggests that physicians should turn to Botox rather than steroids to offer patients the fastest road to recovery. The research appears in the journal Foot & Ankle International, published by SAGE. Plantar fasciitis results when connective tissues on the sole of the foot, the plantar fascia, become painfully inflamed. Physicians may suggest various therapies for this ...

WASHINGTON— The rapid decline in costs associated with many common laboratory techniques, such as DNA sequencing and synthesis, has led to their adoption by individuals outside of traditional university or industrial settings, giving rise to a rapidly growing Do-It-Yourself Biology (DIYbio) community. DIYbio.org and the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center this week are launching the "Ask a Biosafety Expert" service in order to provide this emerging DIYbio community with free and timely access to professional biosafety advice. The project comes amidst ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Dogs and wolves are genetically so similar, it's been difficult for biologists to understand why wolves remain fiercely wild, while dogs can gladly become "man's best friend." Now, doctoral research by evolutionary biologist Kathryn Lord at the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggests the different behaviors are related to the animals' earliest sensory experiences and the critical period of socialization. Details appear in the current issue of Ethology. Until now, little was known about sensory development in wolf pups, and assumptions were usually ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- More than 2,000 former football players are suing the National Football League, saying the league should have taken action earlier to deal with injuries related to concussions more seriously. But if a lack of speed in tackling concussions warrants criticism, the NFL isn't the only player deserving a penalty, according to a study co-authored by health care and law expert David Orentlicher, who teaches at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. Neurologists were also slow in sounding the alarm, and for decades, concussions ...

CHESTNUT HILL, MA (Jan. 17, 2013) – A new study that looked at more than 75,000 children in day care in Norway found little evidence that the amount of time a child spends in child care leads to an increase in behavioral problems, according to researchers from the United States and Norway. Several prior studies in the U.S. made connections between the time a child spends in day care and behavioral problems, but the results from Norway contradict those earlier findings, the researchers report in the online version of the journal Child Development. "In Norway, we do not ...

PORTLAND, Ore. – Physician-scientists at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital are challenging the way pediatric neurologists think about brain injury in the pre-term infant. In a study published online in the Jan. 16 issue of Science Translational Medicine, the OHSU Doernbecher researchers report for the first time that low blood and oxygen flow to the developing brain does not, as previously thought, cause an irreversible loss of brain cells, but rather disrupts the cells' ability to fully mature. This discovery opens up new avenues for potential ...

Whether an applicant receives a high or low score may have more to do with who else was interviewed that day than the overall strength of the applicant pool, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Drawing on previous research on the gambler fallacy, Uri Simonsohn of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School hypothesized that admissions interviewers would have a difficult time seeing the forest for the trees. Instead of evaluating applicants ...

URBANA – When low-income families devote three to four extra minutes to regular family mealtimes, their children's ability to achieve and maintain a normal weight improves measurably, according to a new University of Illinois study. "Children whose families engaged with each other over a 20-minute meal four times a week weighed significantly less than kids who left the table after 15 to 17 minutes. Over time, those extra minutes per meal add up and become really powerful," said Barbara H. Fiese, director of the U of I's Family Resiliency Program. Childhood obesity ...

January 17, 2013 – New Orleans – Extraversion does not just explain differences between how people act at social events. How extraverted you are may influence how the brain makes choices – specifically whether you choose an immediate or delayed reward, according to a new study. The work is part of a growing body of research on the vital role of understanding personality in society. "Understanding how people differ from each other and how that affects various outcomes is something that we all do on an intuitive basis, but personality psychology attempts to bring scientific ...

Most people are familiar with the concept of RADAR. Radio frequency (RF) waves travel through the atmosphere, reflect off of a target, and return to the RADAR system to be processed. The amount of time it takes to return correlates to the object's distance. In recent decades, this technology has been revolutionized by electronically scanned (phased) arrays (ESAs), which transmit the RF waves in a particular direction without mechanical movement. Each emitter varies its phase and amplitude to form a RADAR beam in a particular direction through constructive and destructive ...

VIDEO: NASA Goddard scientists transmitted an image of the Mona Lisa from Earth to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the moon by piggybacking on laser pulses that routinely track the spacecraft. HD... Click here for more information. As part of the first demonstration of laser communication with a satellite at the moon, scientists with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) beamed an image of the Mona Lisa to the spacecraft from Earth. The iconic image traveled ...